


Out of Necessity

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Drama, Implied Potential Drugging, M/M, References to Possible Dubious Consent, missing memories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-01-31 17:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18595825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: "You're going to spend the night with me," were the first words that Prince Laurent ever spoke to Damen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I put the first part of this on Tumblr a while back, but I've messed with it a reasonable amount since then.

Damen had been aware of how many eyes around the room were keenly focused on them, apparently convinced that something interesting or scandalous was bound to happen. Even King Auguste had been seemingly half-ignoring the Veretian nobleman who was animatedly talking in his direction in that moment in favour of overtly staring at them from across the room. 

Damen had supposed it made sense. It was the first direct interaction between Crown Princes of rival nations who were just barely managing civility towards each other. So they all might have had legitimate cause to be so uncannily interested, given the odds of the two of them verbally clashing over the course of the evening. 

In retrospect, Damen would bet that none of them – let alone Damen himself – could have anticipated that it would go quite like this.

"You're going to spend the night with me," were the first words that Prince Laurent ever spoke to Damen. 

Laurent's flat tone would have been most appropriate for grudgingly suggesting a compromise during their upcoming political negotiations, but Damen somehow didn't think that Laurent meant 'spend the night in barely-diplomatic conversation'. Laurent's lingering appraisal of Damen's physique left little room for it to come across as anything other than an amorous proposition.

Damen was taken aback by the boldness of it. No one else would dare to be so demanding with him. He was even more taken aback by how much he liked that.

Still, Damen was glad that none of their audience were standing quite close enough to have overheard Laurent's quiet but unmistakable words. They might not appreciate it as much as he did.

"Is that supposed to be an order?" Damen asked. It certainly sounded like one. As if Laurent had forgotten that Damen was also a prince as well as being an honoured guest here, putting him well outside the scope of Laurent's power to command him. Or as if Damen were the type to just fall in line and obey without question an upstart Veretian who thought he could make Damen bend to his will.

"It's more of a prediction," Laurent said. After a beat, he added, "Unless you would like for it to be an order. I'm sure I could oblige."

"Unless I _what_?"

"Should I speak more slowly? I was led to believe your understanding of Veretian was supposed to be exemplary. I'd be so disappointed to find out that all the rumours about the capabilities of Prince Damianos of Akielos exceed the reality."

Something told Damen that Laurent wasn't really referring to Damen's language skills.

"My understanding of your language is fine," Damen countered. "My understanding of what you mean by greeting a foreign ambassador that way is more… _questionable_."

Damen said the last word in Akielon, as much to learn if Laurent's understanding of his own language was passable as because the word 'questionable' in his own tongue had no direct translation in Veretian; at least not the way that Damen had meant it (which honestly said a lot about Veretian culture, Damen thought). 

"I think you've actually grasped my meaning well enough," said Laurent. "But if you would like me to explicitly describe it to make sure we're exactly on the same page, just say so. I can even do it in Akielon if you insist on further testing my knowledge."

The idea of Laurent describing in detail what he apparently wanted from Damen in heavily accented Akielon was oddly appealing. But Damen still had no intention of encouraging it right there, in front of the entire Veretian court and the Akielon contingent that had travelled with Damen as well. They were lucky they hadn't been overheard so far as it was. Damen couldn't see any point in tempting fate.

"If you're just hoping to lead me on so that you can catch me out in an indiscretion, I'm not interested," Damen warned. Though he couldn't deny his interest if that _weren't_ the case.

It probably wasn't the most diplomatic way to phrase it, but Damen had admittedly never had much patience for veiled suggestions and doublespeak. He suspected that was half the reason Father had chosen to send him (the other half being that the Veretians would never have willingly accepted Kastor into their palace as an ambassador).

There looked to be a flicker of a dark expression across Laurent's face. However, it was so quickly roped under control that just moments later Damen wasn't entirely sure whether to trust his own eyes that he'd seen such a thing at all. 

"'Lead you on'? I see you're as aware of my illustrious reputation as I am of yours. Gossip knows no borders, apparently." Laurent didn't sound pleased by that.

That was true to a point. Tales of the young Veretian prince had indeed reached even as far away as Ios. The first mention was always of Laurent's beauty. Damen felt a little foolish now for having been sceptical that the man could ever match up to the legend in that respect. If anything, those descriptions actually didn't do Laurent enough credit, in Damen's opinion. The second thing people said about him, though, was that those looks of his were being sadly 'wasted'. Prince Laurent of Vere, according to gossip, was often an incorrigible tease, to the point that most of the people who passed through the palace had supposedly been convinced they had a real chance with him at one point or another. But he had, by all accounts, apparently never once followed through on his 'promises'.

That was puzzling to Damen on reflection. In person, Laurent didn't come off as coy in the least, and definitely wasn't uncertain. Nor could Damen pick up on the slightest suggestion that Laurent otherwise didn't fully intend to do as he said. So Damen had to wonder whether his reputation had been accrued simply because Laurent was just very good at keeping the reality of his string of dalliances a secret. Damen had only just met the man, but he didn't doubt Laurent could be convincing enough to make his partners hold their silence afterwards. Though admittedly the idea that he would bother hiding his exploits seemed out of place with the rest of what Damen had seen and heard of Veretian culture.

Damen couldn't say he was used to the idea that someone might want to fall into bed with him only to deny it later, as if they were ashamed of it. But at the same time, he certainly could agree that what a prince chose to do behind closed doors should be no one's business but his own. And respecting Laurent's privacy would be a small enough price for exploring where this could be going.

"I don't care much for rumours," Damen assured Laurent. "I prefer to put my trust in what I experience for myself." 

"Is that so?" said Laurent. "That sounds quite unimaginative of you. And more than a little dangerous as well, for a future king." Damen might have taken that as a warning under other circumstances, especially coming from a Veretian. "But luckily for you, you could choose not to have to rely on rumours alone in this case."

It was a little subtler than the initial version of the offer, but Laurent's meaning still remained obvious. Especially when paired with Laurent's smile, which looked… _predatory_ was the only word that came to mind for it. Something about it had Damen almost on the verge of shivering, though not in discomfort. It made Damen want to do whatever was necessary to draw more of that kind of reaction from Laurent. 

If the rumours really were right, this night could easily involve Laurent just riling him up and then walking away, leaving Damen unfulfilled. And yet that still sounded about a thousand times more tempting than instead diverting his attention to any of the other 'entertainments' that Arles might have to offer this evening. It was a risk worth taking, considering that Damen could hardly deny that he was intrigued by what was being offered. Far more so than he probably should have been.

It would be far too suspicious to slip away with Laurent just yet, before dinner had even been served, and with entertainments specifically in honour of Damen's arrival in Arles as their guest doubtless still to come. King Auguste probably wouldn't be amused, especially if he caught onto the _reason_ for their disappearance. And Nikandros definitely wouldn't shut up about Damen's reckless abandonment of propriety and common sense for weeks after this trip ended if Damen were to be that indiscrete about it.

But later… _later_.

Damen smiled at Laurent: a confirmation.


	2. Chapter 2

Damen was dragged unwillingly into consciousness by the sounds of a cluster of servants arriving in his rooms to prepare for the day. After years of getting up at dawn for early training, Damen would usually consider himself to be a morning person. Today, however, he felt unbelievably hazy when he woke. He was so tired and drained that it was almost as though he hadn't slept in weeks, or as if his age had more than doubled overnight. Not to mention how disoriented he was. 

The air that touched his face where the heaviness of the blankets wasn't pressing down on him was too brisk to be the usual warm sea breeze of Ios. Even once one of the servants pulled back the curtains, there was no direct warm stream of sunlight cast into the room. The colourful tapestry that filled the wall across from him where there would only have been plain marble if he were at home hurt Damen's eyes the moment he opened them. The bed he was lying in also felt noticeably different than his own. The concept of having to force his exhausted body out of the indent it had made in this too-soft mattress made Damen grimace. 

Vere, Damen finally recalled blearily after those first foggy moments in which he could only vaguely grasp at the threads of conscious thought.

They'd made landfall on the coast a few days ago, and then arrived in Arles yesterday, Damen remembered now. If the way Damen was feeling after a single night spent here was any indication, apparently Father hadn't been exaggerating when he'd warned that this place was like poison.

Though poor jokes aside, Damen had to wonder what on earth he'd managed to do to himself yesterday. Spending much of the day forcing a polite smile while he was meeting and greeting Veretian nobles and royalty had certainly been mentally strenuous, but that didn't justify him feeling about a hundred times more physically wrung out than he'd ever been from a day of hard riding or intensive training. 

Finally recollecting how he had spent the early evening, Damen wished he could at least have credited an exceptionally wild night with the Veretian Prince for knocking him on his ass like this (possibly literally as well as figuratively). It might even have been worth feeling like this if that were the cause. But he had no memory of anything like that happening. And despite what Damen had been hoping for last night, he was notably alone this morning.

The last time Damen recalled seeing Laurent had been back in the banquet hall. They must have parted there, though Damen couldn't have said on what terms. Though Damen found that he didn't remember anything at all about how he'd made it to the guest rooms he'd been assigned for the duration of his stay. There was nothing but a blank in his mind after a certain point in the evening. 

Damen must have drank _so much_ last night. That was the only explanation. Which meant he'd sabotaged himself without meaning to.

Regardless of whether or not it had turned out that Laurent _had_ actually just been teasing him, Damen couldn't have been in any state to take advantage of Laurent's offer if he'd drank enough to feel _this_ bad. He'd probably made an utter fool of himself. It wouldn't be the first time (as Nikandros would surely remind him at first opportunity), but he'd certainly never overindulged so badly at an important event like this.

Damen desperately wished he could just roll over and sleep away the rest of the day until the effects faded. But he had important places to be later this morning.

In retrospect, Damen could hardly believe that he'd put himself in this position, knowing that he was going to have to be in a fit state to negotiate with irritating Veretian ambassadors and advisors the entire following day. Especially when Damen was admittedly deep in what Father would call 'enemy' territory, for all that there had technically been an enforced if grudging peace between their countries for the past few years. Damen might have the suspicious eyes of the two dozen Akielon guards who'd accompanied him to Vere watching out for him while he was here, but that didn't mean he should be offering up weaknesses for the Veretians to potentially take advantage of.

For that exact reason, it was probably a good thing that Damen hadn't ended up tumbling Prince Laurent last night after all. It was easy to push such concerns aside when he was in the heat of flirtation (or what passed for that with Laurent, as far as Damen could tell) with someone of Laurent's unparalleled looks, but Damen did know that there were good reasons why Father (who apparently knew his son too well) had pointedly warned Damen not to get close to any of the Veretians. What Damen did recall of the hours spent at Laurent's side the previous evening suggested that he was incredibly sharp-minded, with a wit that was expressed mostly through barbed comments about the courtiers and the performers and even Damen himself (which Damen found surprisingly amusing despite the harshness of it). His company was enjoyable enough to make Damen forget where he was, and that he was surrounded by snakes.

In other words, he was a threat, at least by Father's measures.

And Damen had apparently voluntarily made himself vulnerable in the presence of that threat, not only last night but now today as well, since he was hardly in prime condition to sit through hours of negotiations for the rest of the day. Damen didn't look forward to facing Nikandros this morning. He would _not_ have been impressed with Damen's stupidity, and wouldn't be afraid to let him know.

Nikandros was quick to prove Damen right when he came to fetch him from his rooms.

"You look terrible," Nikandros said. 

Damen had actually been hoping he looked _somewhat_ human again after bathing and ravenously wolfing down the array of food that the servants had brought for his morning meal (thanking the stars all along that he somehow wasn't sick to the stomach this morning like that one time he'd practically drank his weight in Isthiman spiced wine at age seventeen).

"Thank you," Damen replied wryly. "You know I always appreciate your supportive commentary so much."

"I'm serious. You look like you were ambushed in the night."

"Only if you call a gathering of empty wine pitchers an ambush. Makedon would be appalled to learn that even griva apparently doesn't hold a candle to the strength of whatever they serve here. Remind me not to drink again."

"Because you've always listened so well every time I've told you that before," Nikandros pointed out. "Though it would have been difficult to stop you when I didn't even see you drinking in the first place. You must have saved the party until after you slipped away for the night."

Damen frowned. "You know I can never see the point of drinking alone."

"Which would have been a problem, I'm sure, if you'd _been_ alone," countered Nikandros. Damen's shock must have come across clearly, for Nikandros narrowed his eyes slightly in obvious disapproval. "Don't tell me you drank enough that you can't even remember."

"Fine. I won't tell you that."

Nikandros sighed. "You could at least try to show some restraint while we're here of all places. This isn't the village inn, and he isn't one of the merchants' daughters you can just get away with leaving behind without a word after you've had your fun. There are far-reaching potential consequences here. Or have you forgotten that you're here to negotiating a treaty with King Auguste in your haste to bed his brother?"

Laurent? Nikandros thought that Damen had disappeared with Laurent at the end of the night after all? 

"I didn't bed him." Even if Laurent had had his fun and then slipped away in the night, surely there would still have been signs to indicate that he'd been there. The guest bed that Damen had slept in was minimally rumpled this morning, and Damen's clothing had still been properly in place. There had been no tackiness of dried sweat (or other things) clinging to his skin, either, even before the bath. It was impossible that anything of the kind had happened and yet left no trace.

Right?

Nikandros, for his part, looked utterly disbelieving.

"I _didn't_ ," Damen insisted, as much to convince himself as Nikandros. Drink or no drink, it just wasn't possible that Damen would have no memory at all of tumbling someone like Laurent. Not a chance.

"But you wanted to."

Damen didn't bother to lie. He wasn't particularly talented at it, and Nikandros knew him too well to believe it anyway.

"I almost wish you had just done it and got it out of your system, then," Nikandros said. "Now you're going to spend the whole negotiation sitting across from him and imagining it."

Well… 

"Don't worry," Damen said. "I have no intention of doing anything that might negatively affect the negotiations." Assuming, of course, that Damen hadn't already managed to do so.

It notably wasn't actually a denial of Nikandros's point.

"No. You never do intend it, do you?" Nikandros said wearily enough that Damen would almost have sworn that _he_ was the one who'd woken feeling like he was just barely on the right side of death this morning. 

Damen supposed that under the circumstances, he couldn't really defend himself on that point, could he?


	3. Chapter 3

Before following Nikandros off to meet with the Veretians, a brief aside with Kleon – who was the highest-ranked of Damen's guards who had been stationed outside the door into Damen's rooms during the night – proved even more enlightening about the happenings of the previous night than what Nikandros had said.

No, Damen hadn't drunkenly embarrassed himself, at least in public. Kleon couldn't comment on what Damen might have said to Prince Laurent, to offend him or otherwise, but no apologies would need to be made directly to King Auguste for having made a spectacle of himself. Damen hadn't already managed to negatively impact their overall ability to complete the negotiations they'd come here for even before those negotiations had gotten underway. That was something.

As for the rest, Kleon was clearly trying not to allow his discomfort of speaking implicitly of his Prince's affairs to shine through, meaning he reported the events in as perfunctory a manner as possible. Nikandros hadn't been wrong, as it turned out. Laurent _had_ accompanied Damen away from the crowds, and had also shown Damen back to Damen's assigned guest apartments; something that easily could have been accomplished by a servant if it had only been a matter of courtesy. They had appeared to be on good terms to Kleon's eyes as they walked the halls, but Kleon couldn't comment on what they had spoken of, as the guards had trailed at too great a distance to have overheard. Nor, Kleon said (blushing a little, if Damen wasn't mistaken) could he say what had passed between them in privacy. But what he could tell Damen was that Laurent had apparently only remained with Damen inside his rooms for perhaps half an hour before emerging and disappearing back the way the two of them had come, taking his own guards along with him.

Half an hour. Under other circumstances, that would have been embarrassing. Here, however, it seemed impossible. Surely it would take the better part of half an hour just to remove those complicated Veretian clothes Laurent had been wearing. And yet Laurent had seemed to still be dressed just as pristinely when he'd left as he'd been when they'd arrived, Kleon elaborated when Damen prompted him.

Perhaps they had kept to activities that didn't require Laurent to undress? Damen had seen enough of that sort of thing going on earlier in the evening, so it seemed that might be how Veretians did these things. But still, drunk or not, Damen _sincerely doubted_ he would have only managed to keep Laurent's attention for that long.

Which brought up the other problem. According to Kleon, the princes had both seemed unimpaired while walking back to Damen's rooms. And Damen couldn't imagine he would have spent the entire time Laurent had been with him drinking, nor that he would have fallen into the bottle once Laurent left. He enjoyed his wine, but not like that. So when, exactly, could Damen have managed to get himself blackout drunk?

It didn't seem possible. Suspicion started stirring in his mind.

Could Laurent have taken the opportunity provided by Damen being out from under the guards' direct watch to do something to Damen, like slipping him something other than alcohol? But what reason could he have had to do that? To take advantage of Damen? Why bother when Damen had been more than willing to go along with what Laurent wanted from him already. Perhaps the point had instead been to make Damen forget what they'd done together? If Laurent made a habit of that, that would explain why everyone assumed he was virginal. But the fact remained that half an hour more or less fully clothed would hardly yield much of anything worthy of making Damen forget.

But what other reason could there be? Damen supposed that it could all instead have been a ploy to ensure Vere would be in a superior position at today's meetings. Did Laurent hope that he would give Vere a leg-up at the negotiation table by slipping Damen something which would make him mentally and physically exhausted during the meetings? There could be some merit to that. But weighed against the consequences if the Prince of Vere were caught drugging the future King of Akielos, it seemed to carry a high risk in exchange for potentially little or no reward, especially when the effects that Damen was experiencing now were only really akin to a night of extreme overindulgence. Annoying, but certainly not impossible to overcome, especially with advisors at his back. Laurent had seemed far too intelligent to bother with such measures.

Maybe Damen should have mentioned his suspicions, but he knew what the consequences would be if he did. Even without actual proof of ill intent, Nikandros would take an accusation of a Veretian drugging his Prince seriously enough that he would insist on protecting Damen completely, even if that meant ordering every guard who had accompanied them to Arles to collectively pounce on Damen and drag him back onto the ship that would sail him safely back to their side of the border. And then once Father found out, they'd surely end up right back on the edge of war with Vere, as they'd been just a couple of years ago when the country had been under King Aleron's rule and tensions had been at their peak. Damen would certainly fight a war if he had to, but not over what could be an overreaction or a misunderstanding.

So he wouldn't do anything until he'd attempted to clear it up with Laurent himself. Damen couldn't wait to hear what Laurent had to say about it.

It was something of a stroke of good luck that Laurent was waiting in the hallway outside the room where Damen would undoubtedly be spending the next few days arguing with Veretians. Waiting for Damen, perhaps? But no, that was just wishful thinking on Damen's part. Laurent probably just didn't want to have to be trapped inside that room with a group of Akielons until absolutely necessary, all things considered.

Unlike Damen, Laurent didn't look at all negatively affected by anything that might have occurred the previous night, drinking or otherwise. There was no heaviness under his eyes or drooping of his lids. In fact, candlelight must have done Laurent none of the justice that it often did for others, because he somehow looked even more vibrant this morning.

Laurent didn't pay Damen a similar compliment.

When Laurent flicked his eyes over towards Damen, there was no sign of the heated way he'd looked at Damen last night. Damen tried not to feel too disappointed by his sudden seeming disinterest. It was foolish to care. Laurent might have been plotting against him, for all Damen knew.

"You look like death warmed over," Laurent said. He really did enjoy his impolitic greetings, didn't he? And he obviously had no real fear of the possibility of offending Damen with his frankness. Damen thought he _almost_ sounded as though he were concerned. Almost. But Damen was probably just reading into it what he would like to see.

"I must have slept poorly."

Laurent showed no obvious reaction to that. "Did you find the accommodations to be not to your liking?"

Pointedly: "I could ask you the same since you decided to leave them very quickly."

"So I did." It was said matter-of-factly. It was clear that Laurent had no intention of offering any kind of explanation.

"Weren't you the one who said from the start that we'd be spending the night together?"

"It appears I lost interest," said Laurent, not sounding at all apologetic. "Perhaps I assumed you would have enough stamina to last the whole night and was disappointed by the reality."

Damen bristled. He knew he shouldn't rise to the bait of what was most likely a distraction technique, but he _really_ couldn't just let that stand unanswered. "My stamina's just fine. Some would say exceptional."

"Would they? Perhaps 'some' have low standards. I personally have yet to see any evidence in support of that."

"I'm more than willing to provide 'evidence' any time you like," Damen said.

The slightest of smiles played at Laurent's lips. "How about right now? How long do you think you would last when you look like you would keel over if someone breathed on you too hard."

It was a fair point, and yet Damen still couldn't help but say, "Try me."

"Tempting," Laurent said, in a way that suggested it was anything but. "However, I think you'll find that the meeting is about to start."

Laurent promptly disappeared into the room where the others were probably waiting on them by now before Damen could respond.

It wasn't until Laurent was out of sight and no longer putting that sharpened tongue of his to good use that Damen recalled that the point of the confrontation had been supposed to be to subtly grill Laurent about the possibility that he'd done something untoward to Damen, not to debate about Damen's sexual prowess.

Laurent was very good at pushing Damen and the conversation alike in the direction he wanted, it seemed.

The question was whether doing so was just a game to him, or whether there was a reason why Laurent would _need_ to steer the conversation in a particular direction.

Damen was, unfortunately, going to have to last through an entire day of talking about things like trade, and incursions from Vask, and the resolution of border tensions before he could make a second attempt at finding out the answer to that.

Just the thought of it brought every ounce of fatigue rushing back to his attention.

Damen wondered how offended King Auguste would _really_ be if Damen just went to sleep and let Nikandros handle this for a while.


End file.
